Archive for December, 2012

On Saturday night Kim and I attended the Beach Boys concert in the Vilar Center in Beaver Creek. It is amazing how, through all the iterations, these guys can still put on a fabulous show. Only Mike Love from the original band was part of the group but if you closed your eyes, it was still the Beach Boys from the 1960’s.

Of course growing up in the 60’s in Los Angeles and being a would-be surfer, the Beach Boys were my heroes. How do they still connect 50 years after their peak? Is their music timeless? The Vilar Center was packed and everyone was up and dancing throughout the show. I saw folks from their teens to their 70’s in the audience. Clearly the Beach Boys music spans several generations. Kim and I were up with the crowd. It was a fun night.

The assets of the Club at Cordillera were acquired today by Wind Rose Holdings, LLC, the successful bidder at the auction on 10 December 2012. As contemplated by the global settlement agreement reached by the former Club owner and the community in September, the CPOA will acquire ownership of the Community Assets (Short Course, Summit Athletic Club, and Trailhead) as of Monday, 31 December 2012. Once closing of the assets occurs on Monday, the assets will be owned and operated by CPOA, and will be available for use by all CPOA property owners and residents. Specific use guidelines for the Short Course and Trailhead will be developed over the coming months, in advance of the summer operating season.

Wind Rose has indicated that the Summit Athletic Club will be open, consistent with the past operating schedule for the facility, until closing of CPOA’s acquisition of the assets. Following CPOA’s acquisition on Monday, 31 December 2012, the Summit Athletic Club will be open to all CPOA members as of Tuesday, 1 January 2013. In general, anticipated seasonal operating hours for the Summit Athletic Club will be 10 hours per day/7 days per week from Labor Day through Memorial Day and 16 hours per day/7 days per week from Memorial Day through Labor Day. Extended operating hours may also be added during other peak times (such as Winter Holidays), as warranted by demand. There will be no additional user fees for CPOA members to access the Summit Athletic Club, as the costs of operation will be covered by CPOA’s base annual assessment.

We look forward to seeing you all at the Summit Athletic Club and thank you for your continued support of Cordillera.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 5,900 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 10 years to get that many views.

It was announced yesterday that the 2013 US Pro Challenge will stop in both Vail and Beaver Creek. Two years ago Vail hosted a time trial and last summer Beaver Creek hosted a stage finish in Beaver Creek Village. I was in Beaver Creek for the finish of that stage and it was amazing how many people were in the Village. The photo was from last summer’s race. I’m sure this summer will be just as exciting.

Beaver Creek will host the finish of Stage 4 on Thursday, August 22. The racers start in Steamboat Spring.

The following day, Friday, August 23, Vail will host the time trial. That race course was lined with spectators the last time the time trial was in Vail.

The cool thing is that the racers will be in Beaver Creek and Vail on Thursday and Friday, making for a great long weekend for visitors. I’m guessing there will be plenty of events scheduled for Saturday and Sunday. Plan your trip now and come see the races!

I received the following message from Vail Resorts through their Employee Newsletter. Interesting new acquisitions. I’m wondering how you make these into “feeder” resorts beyond including them in the Epic Pass? We’ll see.

This time next year, could you be skiing on the same pass as your friends in the Midwest? Last week we welcomed two premier urban ski areas in the Midwest, Afton Alps in Minnesota and Mount Brighton in Michigan, to the Vail Resorts family. Both ski areas serve major snow sports markets in the Midwest with more than 468,000 active skiers and snowboarders in the nearby Minneapolis-St. Paul and Detroit metropolitan areas. Read the full story.

But while many economists believe this emerging housing recovery will produce only slow and modest improvement in home prices, construction and jobs, others believe the rebound will be much stronger.

Barclays Capital put out a report recently forecasting that home prices, which fell by more than a third after the housing bubble burst in 2007, could be back to peak levels as soon as 2015.

“In our view, the housing market had undergone a dramatic over-correction during the prior five years, resulting in pent-up demand for housing purchases that would spark a rapid rise in housing starts,” said Stephen Kim, an analyst with Barclays, in a note to clients.

In addition to what Kim sees as a big rebound in building, he’s bullish on home prices, expecting rises of 5% to 7.5% a year.

Construction is expected to be even stronger, with numerous experts forecasting home construction to grow by at least 20% a year for each of the next two years. Some believe building could be back near the pre-bubble average of about 1.5 million new homes a year by 2016, about double the 750,000 homes expected this year.

“We think the recovery is for real this time around,” said Rick Palacios, senior analyst with John Burns Real Estate Consulting. “If you look across the U.S. economy right now, there are only a handful of industries looking at 20-30% growth over the next 4-5 years, and housing is one of those.”

“That turn in the [housing] market is occurring now and it should become a boom by 2015. It will be powerful enough … to lift the entire U.S. economy,” said Roger Altman, chairman of Evercore Partners and former deputy Treasury secretary, in a column for the Financial Times.

Altman said he expects housing will add 4 million jobs to the economy over the next five years, as pent-up demand for home purchases drives building and and home prices higher.